1 frame per hour AKA Timelapse

mikeHedge

mikeHedge

Member
Ok so.... we all know that Jim comes from a photography background. We've seen photos of him shooting with a Canon 1D.

All the specs of the RED-ONE are looking super great.... I shoot on a Canon 30D. I shoot timelapses. I sometimes shoot 1 frame exposed at 1/500 of a second every 5 seconds. I sometimes shoot 1 frame exposed for 30 seconds every 30 seconds. I do hope that the RED-ONE will have intervalometer software or settings built in to shoot timelapses like you would on any Canon DSLR.

So to simplify: I should have the flexability to be able to set it up to shoot 1 frame every 24 hours. OR 1 frame that is exposed for up to 5 minutes every 5 minutes. And it will continue to shoot with these setting till I stop it.

Or even cooler. I should, via the OLED touchscreen, be able to asign it to fade from the "Beginning" setting to the "Ending" setting. Meaning at sunset 6PM I would shoot at 1/100 of a second 1 frame every 5 seconds, and as the sunset set, the RED ONE would fade to my end setting of exposing each frame for 5 minutes, when it's now 10PM and the stars are out. (Think After Effect keyframes)

It should also be able to shoot for a variable amount of time every so often. Like shoot 5 seconds of video every hour. Or for 1 hour ever 24 hours. You just set it up using the onscreen userinterface/software, lock it off on a tripod and come back later.

This product from DataVideo is pretty close:
http://www.datavideo.us/fs/products/dn100_fs.htm but of course the RED would be at 4k.

So... in recap:
I should be able to choose how often an image is recorded.(1fps-1f/day)
What amount of time that image is captured over. (1/10000-10min.)
Select the number of frames recorded at each time interval. (1f-2hours)

Mike RED #(Oct 30th reservation)
 
My deep hope is that there is extensive time lapse and animation support.

Anything worthwhile that the 90+ year old camera I have in my sig can do, the RED should do as well...

From a programming point of view, the "timer" related functions should be very easy... as to long time exposures, really, really hoping for something in this area. I'm hoping that even if the sensor starts to bug out at the longer exposures, RED will still allow us to shoot them. We can always fix in post.

In addition, it would be nice if there was a physical "sync" or "contact" trigger on the camera, and/or maybe a console software app for a laptop.
 
It seems timelapse ought to be easy enough with red. However... if you're shooting any slower than say 1 frame per 5 seconds, I have to wonder if you wouldn't be better off using a much less expensive still camera to do it. There are several available with equivalent resolution. A lot of timelapse is done on location outdoors, and I suspect a small SLR is a lot more practical to run for hours at a time from batteries.
 
The timelapse features that would be nice to have are pretty simple.

1. Length of shot (you might want this to go up to 1 minute for night timelapses of stars).

2. Interval between shots.
 
Yeah, that's true. That way you can set the total duration, or total number of frames and walk away. In other words, if you want a 10-second clip, then you will need 240 frames. Set the thing to 240 frames, and it will stop after that.

Basically what the RED team could do is take a look at something like the Canon TC-80N3, and then just emulate it.
 
Tom Lowe said:
In other words, if you want a 10-second clip, then you will need 240 frames. Set the thing to 240 frames, and it will stop after that.
Click to expand...
Or just select "10 seconds" so I don't have to do the math... :grin:
 
Yeah half the time I am doing timelapses up in the mountains or deserts, there is often beer involved, and you know how well beer and math go together. :)
 
Tom Lowe said:
Yeah half the time I am doing timelapses up in the mountains or deserts, there is often beer involved, and you know how well beer and math go together. :)
Click to expand...

"Beer" or "Bears"? In the mountains, actually, it could be both... :)

As to the question of why not just use a DSLR mentioned a few posts higher, I've got to say that they are good choices, but since I will own the RED, the ultimate 12 Megapixel camera, and I've burned out a few shutters on DSLR's over the last few years doing crazy amounts of time-lapse, why not? Besides, I've done quite a few things with my 35mm cameras over the years where I switch from time-lapse up to 24fps while keeping the same framing.

Besides, DLSR's, as mentioned, still have trouble at the time-lapse rates I prefer, which can be from 2 frames/sec up to 1 frame in 4 seconds... the most money I've made from time-lapse sunsets were shot at 2 frames/sec... just enough to give some motion to the clouds, not enough to feel like an effect is going on...

Regards,
 
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